The Winter King

by Bernard Cornwell

  It was Cuneglas’s turn to seem bemused, then he shrugged as though he was not certain he was making the right decision, but at last he gestured towards his shield–wall. Arthur stood and, side by side with the Prince, went to see the dying King Gorfyddyd.

  I wanted to call out to Arthur not to go, but he was swallowed in the enemy’s ranks before my muddled wits recovered. I cringed to think what Gorfyddyd would say to Arthur, and I knew Gorfyddyd would say those things, the same filthy things that he had spat at me across the rim of his spear-scarred shield. King Gorfyddyd was not a man to forgive his enemies, nor one to spare an enemy hurt, even if he was dying. Especially if he was dying. It would be Gorfyddyd’s final pleasure in this world to know that he had hurt his foe. Sagramor shared my fears, and both of us watched in anguish as, after a few moments, Arthur emerged from the defeated ranks with a face as dark as Cruachan’s Cave. Sagramor stepped towards him. ‘He lied, Lord,’ Sagramor said softly. ‘He always lied.’

  ‘I know he lied,’ Arthur said, then shuddered. ‘But some untruths are hard to hear and impossible to forgive.’ Anger suddenly swelled up inside him and he drew Excalibur and turned fiercely on the trapped enemy. ‘Does any man of you want to fight for your King’s lies?’ he shouted as he paced up and down their line. ‘Is there one of you? Just one man willing to fight for that evil thing that dies with you? Just one? Or else I’ll have your King’s soul cursed to the last darkness! Come on, fight!’ He flailed Excalibur at their raised shields. ‘Fight! You scum!’ His rage was as terrible as anything the vale had seen that whole day. ‘In the name of the Gods,’ he called, ‘I declare your King a liar, a bastard, a thing without honour, a nothing!’ He spat at them, then fumbled one-handed at the buckles of my leather breastplate that he still wore. He succeeded in freeing the shoulder straps, but not the waist, so that the breastplate hung in front of him like a blacksmith’s apron. ‘I’ll make it easy for you!’ he yelled. ‘No armour. No shield. Come and fight me! Prove to me that your bastard whore-mongering King speaks truth! Not one of you?’ His rage was out of control for he was in the Gods’ hands now and spattering his anger at a world that cowered from his dreadful force. He spat again. ‘You rancid whores!’ He whirled around as Cuneglas reappeared in the shield–wall. ‘You, whelp?’ He pointed Excalibur at Cuneglas. ‘You’d fight for that lump of dying filth?’

  Cuneglas, like every man there, was shaken by Arthur’s fury, but he walked weaponless from the shield–wall and then, just feet from Arthur, he sank to his knees. ‘We are at your mercy, Lord Arthur,’ he said and Arthur stared at him. His body was tense for all the rage and frustration of a day’s fighting was boiling inside him and for a second I thought that Excalibur would hiss in the dusk to strike Cuneglas’s head from his shoulders, but then Cuneglas looked up. ‘I am now King of Powys, Lord Arthur, but at your mercy.’

  Arthur closed his eyes. Then, still with his eyes shut, he felt for Excalibur’s scabbard and thrust the long sword home. He turned away from Cuneglas, opened his eyes and stared at us, his spearmen, and I saw the madness pass away from him. He was still seething with anger, but the uncontrollable rage had passed and his voice was calm as he begged Cuneglas to stand. Then Arthur summoned his banner holders so that the twin standards of the dragon and the bear would add dignity to his words. ‘My terms are these,’ he said so that everyone in the darkening vale could hear him. ‘I demand King Gundleus’s head. He has kept it too long and the murderer of my King’s mother must be brought to justice. That granted, I ask only for peace between King Cuneglas and my King and between King Cuneglas and King Tewdric. I ask for peace between all the Britons.’

  There was an astonished silence. Arthur was the winner on this field. His forces had killed the enemy’s king and captured Powys’s heir, and every man in the vale expected Arthur to demand a royal ransom for Cuneglas’s life. Instead he was asking for nothing but peace.

  Cuneglas frowned. ‘What of my throne?’ he managed to ask.

  ‘Your throne is yours, Lord King,’ Arthur said. ‘Whose else can it be? Accept my terms, Lord King, and you are free to return to it.’

  ‘And Gundleus’s throne?’ Cuneglas asked, perhaps suspecting that Arthur wanted Siluria for himself.

  ‘Is not yours,’ Arthur replied firmly, ‘nor mine. Together we shall find someone to keep it warm. Once Gundleus is dead,’ he added ominously. ‘Where is he?’

  Cuneglas gestured towards the village. ‘In one of the buildings, Lord.’

  Arthur turned towards Powys’s defeated spearmen and raised his voice so that each man could hear him. ‘This war should never have been fought!’ he called. ‘That it was fought is my fault, and I accept that fault and shall pay for it in any coin other than my life. To the Princess Ceinwyn I owe more than apology and shall pay whatever she demands, but all I now ask is that we should be allies. New Saxons come daily to take our land and enslave our women. We should fight them, not amongst ourselves. I ask for your friendship, and as a token of that desire I leave you your land, your weapons and your gold. This is neither victory nor defeat’ – he gestured at the bloody, smoke-palled valley – ‘it is a peace. All I ask is peace and one life. That of Gundleus.’ He looked back to Cuneglas and lowered his voice. ‘I wait your decision, Lord King.’

  The Druid Iorweth hurried to Cuneglas’s side and the two men spoke together. Neither seemed to believe Arthur’s offer, for warlords were not usually magnanimous in victory. Battle winners demanded ransom, gold, slaves and land; Arthur wanted only friendship. ‘What of Gwent?’ Cuneglas asked Arthur. ‘What will Tewdric want?’

  Arthur made a show of looking about the darkening valley. ‘I see no men of Gwent, Lord King. If a man is not party to a fight then he cannot be party to the settlement afterward. But I can tell you, Lord King, that Gwent craves for peace. King Tewdric will ask for nothing except your friendship and the friendship of my King. A friendship we shall mutually pledge never to break.’

  ‘And I am free to go if I give you that pledge?’ Cuneglas asked suspiciously.

  ‘Wherever you wish, Lord King, though I ask your permission to come to you at Caer Sws to talk further.’

  ‘And my men are free to go?’ Cuneglas asked.

  ‘With their weapons, their gold, their lives and my friendship,’ Arthur answered. He was at his most earnest, desperate to ensure that this was the last battle ever to be fought among the Britons, though he had taken good care, I noticed, to mention nothing of Ratae. That surprise could wait.

  Cuneglas still seemed to find the offer too good to be true, but then, perhaps remembering his former friendship with Arthur, he smiled. ‘You shall have your peace, Lord Arthur.’

  ‘On one last condition,’ Arthur said unexpectedly and harshly, yet not loudly, so that only a few of us could hear his words. Cuneglas looked wary, but waited. ‘Promise me, Lord King,’ Arthur said, ‘upon your oath and upon your honour, that at his death your father lied to me.’

  Peace hung on Cuneglas’s answer. He momentarily closed his eyes as though he was hurt; then he spoke. ‘My father never cared for truth, Lord Arthur, but only for those words that would achieve his ambitions. My father was a liar, upon my oath.’

  ‘Then we have peace!’ Arthur exclaimed. I had only seen him happier once, and that was when he had wed his Guinevere, but now, amidst the smoke and reek of a battle won, he looked almost as joyful as he had in that flowered glade beside the river. Indeed, he could hardly speak for joy for he had gained what he wanted more than anything in all the world. He had made peace.

  Messengers went north and south, to Caer Sws and to Durnovaria, to Magnis and into Siluria. Lugg Vale stank of blood and smoke. Many of the wounded were dying where they had fallen and their cries were pitiful in the night while the living huddled round fires and talked of wolves coming from the hills to feast on the battle’s dead.

  Arthur seemed almost bewildered by the size of his victory. He was now, though he could scarcely comprehend it, the effective ruler
of southern Britain, for there were no other men who would dare stand against his army, battered though it was. He needed to talk with Tewdric, he needed to send spearmen back to the Saxon frontier, he desperately wanted his good news to reach Guinevere, and all the while men begged him for favours and land, for gold and rank. Merlin was telling him about the Cauldron, Cuneglas wanted to discuss Aelle’s Saxons, while Arthur wanted to talk of Lancelot and Ceinwyn, and Oengus Mac Airem was demanding land, women, gold and slaves from Siluria.

  I demanded only one thing on that night, and that one thing Arthur granted me.

  He gave me Gundleus.

  The King of Siluria had taken refuge in a small Roman-built temple that was attached to the larger Roman house in the small village. The temple was made of stone and had no windows except for a crude hole let into its high gable to let smoke out, and only one door which opened on to the house’s stable-yard. Gundleus had tried to escape from the vale, but his horse had been cut down by one of Arthur’s horsemen and now, like a rat in its last hole, the King waited his doom. A handful of loyal Silurian spearmen guarded the temple door, but they deserted when they saw my warriors advance out of the dark.

  Tanaburs alone was left to guard the firelit temple where he had made a small ghost-fence by placing two newly severed heads at the foot of the door’s twin posts. He saw our spearheads glitter in the stableyard gate and he raised his moon-tipped staff as he spat curses at us. He was calling on the Gods to shrivel our souls when, quite suddenly, his screeching stopped.

  It stopped when he heard Hywelbane scraping from her scabbard. At that sound he peered into the dark yard as Nimue and I advanced together and, recognizing me, he gave a small frightened cry like the sound of a hare trapped by a wildcat. He knew that I owned his soul and so he scuttled in terror through the temple door. Nimue kicked the two heads scornfully aside then followed me inside. She was carrying a sword. My men waited outside.

  The temple had once been dedicated to some Roman God, though now it was the British Gods for whom the skulls were stacked so high against its bare stone walls. The skulls’ dark eye-sockets gazed blankly towards the twin fires that lit the high narrow chamber where Tanaburs had made himself a circle of power with a ring of yellowing skulls. He now stood in that circle chanting spells, while behind him, against the far wall where a low stone altar was stained black with sacrificial blood, Gundleus waited with his drawn sword.

  Tanaburs, his embroidered robe spattered with mud and blood, raised his staff and hurled foul curses at me. He cursed me by water and by fire, by earth and by air, by stone and by flesh, by dewfall and by moonlight, by life and by death, and not one of the curses stopped me as I slowly walked towards him with Nimue in her stained white robe beside me. Tanaburs spat a final curse, then pointed the staff straight at my face. ‘Your mother lives, Saxon!’ he cried. ‘Your mother lives and her life is mine. You hear me, Saxon?’ He leered at me from inside his circle and his ancient face was shadowed by the temple’s twin fires, which gave his eyes a red, feral threat. ‘You hear me?’ he cried again. ‘Your mother’s soul is mine! I coupled with her to make it so! I made the two-backed beast with her and drew her blood to make her soul mine. Touch me, Saxon, and your mother’s soul goes to the fire-dragons. She will be crushed by the ground, burned by the air, choked by the water and thrust into pain for evermore. And not just her soul, Saxon, but the soul of every living thing that ever slithered from her loins. I put her blood into the ground, Saxon, and slid my power into her belly.’ He laughed and raised his staff high towards the temple’s beamed roof. ‘Touch me, Saxon, and the curse will take her life and through her life yours.’ He lowered the staff so it pointed at me again. ‘But let me go, and you and she will live.’

  I stopped at the circle’s edge. The skulls did not make a ghost-fence, but there was still a dreadful power in their array. I could feel that power like unseen wings battering great strokes to baffle me. Cross the skull-circle, I thought, and I would enter the Gods’ playground to contend against things I could not imagine, let alone understand. Tanaburs saw my uncertainty and smiled in triumph. ‘Your mother is mine, Saxon,’ he crooned, ‘made mine, all mine, her blood and soul and body are mine, and that makes you mine for you were born in blood and pain from my body.’ He moved his staff so that its moon tip touched my breast. ‘Shall I take you to her, Saxon? She knows you live and a two-day journey will bring you back to her.’ He smiled wickedly. ‘You are mine,’ he cried, ‘all mine! I am your mother and your father, your soul and your life. I made the charm of oneness on your mother’s womb and you are now my son! Ask her!’ He twitched his staff towards Nimue. ‘She knows that charm.’

  Nimue said nothing, but just stared balefully at Gundleus while I looked into the Druid’s horrid eyes. I was frightened to cross his circle, terrified by his threats, but then, in a sickening rush, the events of that long-ago night came back to me as if they had happened just yesterday. I remembered my mother’s cries and I remembered her pleading with the soldiers to leave me at her side and I remembered the spearmen laughing and striking her head with their spear-staves, and I remembered this cackling Druid with the hares and moons on his robe and the bones in his hair and I remembered how he had lifted me and fondled me and said what a fine gift for the Gods I would make. All that I remembered, just as I remembered being lifted up, screaming for my mother who could not help me, and I remembered being carried through the twin lines of fire where the warriors danced and the women moaned, and I remembered Tanaburs holding me high above his tonsured head as he walked to the edge of a pit that was a black circle in the earth surrounded by fires whose flames burned bright enough to illuminate the blood-smeared tip of a sharpened stake that protruded from the bowels of the round dark pit. The memories were like pain serpents biting at my soul as I remembered the bloody scraps of flesh and skin hanging from the firelit stake and the half-comprehended horror of the broken bodies that writhed in slow pitiful agony as they died in the bloody darkness of this Druid’s death-pit. And I remembered how I still screamed for my mother as Tanaburs lifted me to the stars and prepared to give me to his Gods. ‘To Gofannon,’ he had shouted, and my mother screamed as she was raped and I screamed because I knew I was going to die, ‘to Lleullaw,’ Tanaburs shouted, ‘to Cernunnos, to Taranis, to Sucellos, to Bel!’ And on that last great name he had hurled me down on to the killing stake.

  And he had missed.

  My mother had been screaming, and I still heard her screams as I kicked my way through Tanaburs’s circle of skulls, and her screams melded into the Druid’s shriek as I echoed his long-ago cry of death. ‘To Bel!’ I shouted.

  Hywelbane cut down. And I did not miss. Hywelbane cut Tanaburs down through the shoulder, down through the ribs and such was the sheer blood-sodden anger in my soul that Hywelbane cut on down through his scrawny belly and deep into his stinking bowels so that his body burst apart like a rotted corpse, and all the time I screamed the awful scream of a little child being given to the death-pit.

  The skull circle filled with blood and my eyes with tears as I looked up at the King who had slain Ralla’s child and Mordred’s mother. The King who had raped Nimue and taken her eye, and remembering that pain I took Hywelbane’s hilt in both my hands and wrenched the blade free of the dirty offal at my feet and stepped across the Druid’s body to carry death to Gundleus.

  ‘He’s mine,’ Nimue shouted at me. She had taken off her eye-patch so that her empty socket leered red in the flamelight. She walked past me, smiling. ‘You’re mine,’ she crooned, ‘all mine,’ and Gundleus screamed.

  And perhaps, in the Otherworld, Norwenna heard that scream and knew that her son, her little winter-born son, was still the King.

  Author’s Note

  It is hardly surprising that the Arthurian period of British history is known as the Dark Ages for we know almost nothing about the events and personalities of those years. We cannot even be certain that Arthur existed, though on balance it does seem likely that
a great British hero called Arthur (or Artur or Artorius) temporarily checked the invading Saxons sometime during the early years of the sixth century AD. One history of that conflict was written during the 540s, Gildas’s De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae, and we might expect such a work to be an authoritative source on Arthur’s achievements, but Gildas does not even mention Arthur, a fact much relished by those who dispute his existence.

  Yet there is some early evidence for Arthur. Around the middle years of the sixth century, just when Gildas was writing his history, the surviving records show a surprising and atypical number of men called Arthur which suggests a sudden fashion for sons being named after a famous and powerful man. Such evidence is hardly conclusive, any more than is the earliest literary reference to Arthur, a glancing mention in the great epic poem Y Gododdin that was written around AD 600 to celebrate a battle between the northern British (‘a mead-nourished host’) and the Saxons, but many scholars believe that reference to Arthur is a much later interpolation.

  After that one dubious mention in Y Gododdin we have to wait another two hundred years for Arthur’s existence to be chronicled by an historian, a gap that weakens the authority of the evidence, yet nevertheless Nennius, who compiled his history of the Britons in the very last years of the eighth century, does make much of Arthur. Significantly Nennius never calls him a king, but rather describes Arthur as the Dux Bellorum, the Leader of Battles, a title I have translated as Warlord. Nennius was surely drawing on ancient folktales, which were a fertile source feeding the increasingly frequent retellings of the Arthur story that reached their zenith in the twelfth century when two writers in separate countries made Arthur into a hero for all times. In Britain Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote his wonderful and mythical Historia Regum Britanniae while in France the poet Chretien de Troyes introduced, among other things, Lancelot and Camelot to the royal mix. The name Camelot might have been pure invention (or else arbitrarily adapted from Colchester’s Roman name, Camulodunum), but otherwise Chrétien de Troyes was almost certainly drawing on Breton myths which might have preserved, like the Welsh folktales that fed Geoffrey’s history, genuine memories of an ancient hero. Then, in the fifteenth century, Sir Thomas Malory wrote Le Morte d’Arthur which is the proto-version of our flamboyant Arthur legend with its Holy Grail, round table, lissom maidens, questing beasts, mighty wizards and enchanted swords.